Federal Judge Issues Scathing Indictment of "Qualified Immunity"
The Federal Judge began his decision by noting a litany of cases in which simple citizens were killed by police, all exonerated under "qualified immunity:"
"Clarence Jamison wasn't jaywalking.
He wasn't outside playing with a toy gun.
He didn't look like a "suspicious person."
He wasn't suspected of "selling loose, untaxed cigarettes."
He wasn't suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
He didn't look like anyone suspected of a crime.
He wasn't mentally ill and in need of help.
He wasn't assisting an autistic patient who had wandered away from a group home.
He wasn't walking home from an after-school job.
He wasn't walking back from a restaurant.
He wasn't hanging out on a college campus.
He wasn't standing outside of his apartment.
He wasn't inside his apartment eating ice cream.
He wasn't sleeping in his bed.
He wasn't sleeping in his car.
He didn't make an "improper lane change."
He didn't have a broken tail light.
He wasn't driving over the speed limit.
He wasn't driving under the speed limit.
No, Clarence Jamison was a Black man driving a Mercedes convertible.
As he made his way home to South Carolina from a vacation in Arizona, Jamison was pulled over and subjected to one hundred and ten minutes of an armed police officer badgering him, pressuring him, lying to him, and then searching his car top-to-bottom for drugs.
Nothing was found. Jamison isn't a drug courier. He's a welder.
Unsatisfied, the officer then brought out a canine to sniff the car. The dog found nothing. So nearly two hours after it started, the officer left Jamison by the side of the road to put his car back together.
Thankfully, Jamison left the stop with his life. Too many others have not.
The Constitution says everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law -- even at the hands of law enforcement. Over the decades, however, judges have invented a legal doctrine to protect law enforcement officers from having to face any consequences for wrongdoing. The doctrine is called 'qualified immunity.' In real life it operates like absolute immunity."
The judge's logic is hard to refute. Let us see if the Supreme Court remedies the plague of abuses its fabrication of "qualified immunity" created.